


Soulmates were dumb

by DemigodKirin



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Clint is sad but eventually gets better, Deaf Clint Barton, Fluff and Angst, M/M, POV Clint Barton, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 11:45:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19440817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemigodKirin/pseuds/DemigodKirin
Summary: Clint had never believed in soulmates, he thought they were stupid and a waste of time. He only cared about his platonic soulmark with his best friend. That was until of course, he started to want to find his soulmate.





	Soulmates were dumb

Soulmates were dumb. That’s what Clint Barton had decided. That they were dumb and he didn’t need his soulmate. His best friend, Natasha Romanoff, was lucky. She didn’t have a romantic soulmate. There were 3 different types of soulmates;  
The first being the common soulmate, the romantic one. This was a red symbol on your wrist or arm, it was more often than not something you could touch to feel your soulmates emotions. The second was a friendship mark, this was more often than not where your friend will first touch you. So Natasha’s was on her hand as that was where Clint had helped her up off the ground. The first time they touched, Clint was Natasha’s soulmate but not in a romantic way, in a way that meant they were soulmates that would always be close and always friends no matter the hard times ahead of them. The final was often the easiest to spot, it was in a person’s eyes. If someone’s eyes had no colour in them, it meant they couldn’t see colours and that their soulmate was either dead or didn’t love them back, this only occurred in romantic soulmates. So if someone’s friendship mark was broken it didn’t leave the other without colour, it just left them with a scar on the mark. 

Clint had two marks: his friendship mark with Natasha and a romantic mark on his wrist of a star symbol which was, well, interesting. His mother had always said he was special, that his soulmate was a shooting star and that their love would rival that of the Gods. Clint always loved his mother’s stories, Edith had tried her best to raise her two boys despite their abusive father and all in all she has done an amazing job. Clint and Barney both had relatively nice jobs, a good living situation (if you don’t count Clint’s depressing Manhattan apartment) and while Barney was happily in love with his soulmate, Clint always clung to the stories his ma would say about how soulmates were fated but at the time he was only 12...

When Clint and Natasha had been approached for the Avengers, they instantly took up the job. It meant meeting other people and heroes like them. Yet still, they both stuck out in the group, for they were the only human pair that didn’t have many powers. However, this didn’t bother them as much as the media apparently thought it did. Most of them kept their marks on the lowdown. The only noticeable person who had or well did have a soulmate was their team leader, Captain America or, well, Steve Rogers. His once blue eyes were dull and blank dark grey, almost void black. He had lost his soulmate, the love in his life, thus losing the colour in his life as a result. Clint never knew who he or she was nor would he ever ask, Steve clearly didn’t want to speak about it so, therefore, he would leave it alone. It’s not like Clint needed to know everyone’s soulmate anyway. 

The Avengers team was going smoothly. They had a dynamic that they enjoyed working with and they had defeated Loki with relative ease when the Asgardian had originally posed a threat, In fact, the whole job made it relatively easy to forget soulmates ever existed. To forget the fact that Clint never knew his. Especially when he was under the mind control of Loki, as awful as it was it did help him forget a lot about himself, he wasn’t home anymore, his body just a puppet for Loki to use. However, as a result of this, he had nightmares and couldn’t sleep alone for a while. Natasha would stay with him, knowing what it meant to have someone else pull you out, pull you apart and use you. So she stayed, every night for a good month. He was grateful, oh so grateful for his best friend, his platonic soulmate. Sometimes he would imagine that he didn’t need a romantic soulmate, not when he had Natasha. She was all he needed for now. Natasha could see how Clint was struggling, especially due to the fact Loki hadn’t fed him, hadn’t let him sleep. When he was free, the first 2 weeks Clint was back with the Avengers after defeating Loki. He was sick, he could barely move and he was definitely struggling. At one point he was so weak that they all feared he would die, his soulmate feared that too but because Clint never checked his mark, he never felt the fear of his soulmate. 

His mother passed away on June 18th. Clint had heard about it when he got back home from a mission. He couldn’t breathe and he felt like his entire world had broken. Everything had gone dark and Clint wanted to lock everything away. His mother was gone and he was alone now. Of course, he wasn’t actually alone. He had his friends, they were his second family and when Natasha found out, she crawled into where Clint had hidden in the vents and brought him ice cream. She truly was his best friend, especially when she didn’t seem to mind that he had tucked himself against her. His head resting on her shoulder. Clint felt like this entire world was starting to crash around him; Loki had made him kill innocent people, taken him as a puppet and used him, he had hurt Natasha during that time and now he had lost his mother. His mother, the one person besides Barney that had helped him to have a life outside of their home, outside of them having nothing and who supported him becoming an Avenger despite how awful her life had been she was always there for her sons and she had been wonderful and now she was gone. All too soon and Clint couldn’t help but grieve and miss her more than anything. 

What Clint hadn’t been expecting to feel that day was a pulse, a beating on his star symbol. His mother always said if you felt a pulse it was because your soulmate was trying to send you a message, trying to send you their love. Clint’s soulmate could feel his pain, feel his sorrow and was attempting to send a message to him. Clint’s heart swelled at the mere thought that his soulmate was alive, was out there and was trying to find him. He didn’t cry but his throat tightened and he blamed it on the emotions of the day. He pressed two fingers against his little star mark on his wrist and closed his eyes. _Thank you_

After that day Clint began to check on what his soulmate was thinking more often. He wouldn’t admit that it helped him but well it did. It made mourning easier and made him feel less alone when Natasha needed her space and he didn’t want to bother her. He started to fall in love with his soulmate having never met them just because they seemed to always check on Clint even if they were stressed over something. Clint could feel them stressing out one day and he tried to attempt to find out why they were so stressed but by the time he went to check on them again all he was met with was a blank screen of emotionless pain. It was dumb but it made Clint feel like he had done something wrong like he’d miss-stepped with his soulmate again. His soulmate he had never even met and yet had already fucked up his relationship. He won’t admit it anymore but he totally didn’t spend the night at Natasha’s after that. 

Natasha left for a mission with Steve and Sam about 3 months after that whole fiasco. Natasha didn’t say a word about Clint showing up on her doorstep at 3 am, tears down his face and his blonde hair in a fluffy mess. She just let him in and let him spend the night. He was thankful that she didn’t ask why he was upset, she knew if he wanted to say anything, he would tell her. The mission took longer than Clint would’ve imagined, so by the 5th day of Natasha being gone, he stopped waiting around Avengers tower and headed home. He went back to the now-abandoned farm, as he hadn’t been here since his mother had died but someone had to look after the place and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be his brother. 

The farm was a pretty place, it had vines growing over the wood and flowers that basically reached the sky. It was calming, the perfect distraction. He worked on getting the flooring fixed up and renovated before trying to renovate some of the rooms. Make the place more modern and liveable because who knows? He may want to retire someday and this would be the perfect place to come to. On his 3rd day out there, he heard a low whine, an animal in pain, and it immediately caught his attention. He had been out in the overgrown garden where the small hut in the garden had collapsed due to a storm having been struck by lightning. Clint was attempting to pull some of the wood away, clean the area up when he heard the whine again. He moved faster, removing the broken and burnt wood before he saw a little head poking out, a Labrador trapped underneath looked up at him with a sad tired face, one of his eyes had been completely destroyed and he looked hungry and in pain. Clint was quick as he pulled the wood away, rescuing the poor dog from being buried alive. “Hey Buddy, you okay?” he whispered to the dog as he carried him inside of the house. He had no idea how to look after animals but he knew how to clean up wounds. He patched the dog up and even attempted to give him an eyepatch like Fury. It reminded him of how simple it had been when he was just an Agent and not ‘Hawkeye’ but it also made him smile. The dog didn’t seem as fond of the idea though and shook the eyepatch off. He fed the dog before deciding he should probably find out who the dog belonged to. 

The next morning he brought the dog to the nearest vet which was at least an hour drive away but the dog didn’t seem to mind, he stuck his head out of the window and let the wind move his tongue which hung out of his mouth. Clint found it hilarious and for once in a while, he laughed. A private laugh between him and this dumb adorable dog. The vet told him that the dog had a name, Arrow. But had no owner or they hadn’t left a chip inside of the dog so they didn’t know where the dog’s owners were. He was basically Clint’s at this point but if he was going to stay with Clint, that name had to change. Arrow was way too cliché for a dog that belonged to Hawkeye. It took him 2 days to think of an appropriate name and by this time, the dog had fallen in love with his new owner; following him around and bouncing at his heels. The first thing Clint rebuilt was an archery range in his back garden and every time Clint tried to fire an arrow to test the new build out, the dog chased after the arrow as it whizzed through the sky. It amused Clint to no end and he found himself falling in love with this dog just as much as the dog was falling in love with him. It made the pain of his soulmate blocking him out just well forgettable. 

He decided on the name Lucky, Lucky because he had been, well, lucky to survive all that time out there without anyone to save him. Lucky seemed to like the name as well. It made Clint happy. 

“We need your help”  
That was the text he got from Natasha the following morning, but Clint never read it. He never saw it. 

That morning when he opened his eyes everything was black, grey and white. And his breathing stopped. He couldn’t feel the sheets beside him or feel his hearing aids on the side table. He couldn’t even register that Lucky was up on the bed, curled up beside him. He felt like everything had stopped. What had happened? Had his soulmate died? Did his soulmate give up hope and just moved on with someone else who didn’t have a soulmate? He had no idea but it felt like everything wasn’t moving around him. Like time had stopped, his heart had stopped. He couldn’t close his eyes, they were plastered to the once blue now pure white ceiling. The once-decorated walls with picture flowing with colour were now dull and uninteresting, just blobs of black and white. Lucky’s fur once a beautiful shade of brown was now a dull grey that seemed like he was much older than he actually was. Clint’s once purple shirt was now black and his blonde hair was now grey. Everything had lost its colour and all at once Clint felt trapped. His hands started to sweat and he never even registered the tears flowing down his face before he managed to realise he was hyperventilating and needed to breathe before he passed out. 

Lucky grounds him presses his wet nose against the man’s knee. Tried to calm Clint down by adding weight to him, to make him realise that he wasn’t alone. He attempted to distract himself, running his hands through Lucky’s fur trying to ignore the fact the dog wasn’t his usual colours anymore. He didn’t know why it had hurt so much, soulmates were dumb right? They were dumb and Clint didn’t need his. At least that’s what he kept telling himself and now, as he sat here, the choice of having a soulmate had been taken. Before he only said they were dumb because he was afraid, afraid of having a person love him for life despite anything but now it had been taken and he was petrified. Surely he would be alone for the rest of his life because of this? Or end up like his mother, with someone who could care less and would beat him. What would his future be now?

Natasha found him curled up on the back doorstep. Lucky running around the garden in the rain while Clint just sat there most likely catching yet another cold. She looked down at him and frowned seeing his eyes when he looked up at her. He looked destroyed, heartbroken and wrecked all in one. His face was blank as if he had lost all his will to live. She sighed and leaned down to wrap his arm around her shoulders, helping him up and leading him inside. She made him coffee and looked after him. Not saying a word before he was sat at the kitchen side table and she sat opposite him. “There is someone you should meet.” She said simply and cryptically as always. Natasha never said anything straight, it was always cryptic messages and hidden secrets.

Natasha kept this person a secret for the entire journey back. Lucky had followed them on the quinjet after Clint had packed up all that he needed for the journey back to Avengers Tower. Whatever was happening there seemed to be causing a huge mess and yet they all went silent when Clint walked through the doors, their eyes on his blank eyes and he desperately wanted to leave the situation, couldn’t Natasha just leave him alone? They were all clearly worried about their usually pun and fun making Hawkeye, who now looked like someone had pissed in his cereal.

“Clint, come with me” Natasha said, taking his hand and leading him down the halls of the larger tower towards one of the medical rooms. “Remember I went with Steve, on that mission?” she said quietly looking at the archer for his response. Clint looked back at her and nodded with curiosity on what any of this could mean.

He became even more confused when Natasha simply pointed inside one of the medical rooms at a sleeping figure, the figure looked exhausted. His brown hair was greasy and down below his shoulders not that Clint could tell the difference of colour right now, there were bags under the man’s eyes and Clint could see the exact position on where his metal arm had been forced into his flesh. It looked painful and Clint felt a pang of guilt and sadness in his heart for this complete stranger. “I don’t understand” Clint admitted, looking over at Natasha for an explanation. Natasha huffed in response and dragged him into the room.  
“This is James, James Barnes. Steve’s friend, he was brainwashed. We think you can help. Because of Loki” she added the last bit quietly, afraid that it would cause Clint to dash just like he wanted to right now. He frowned but nodded. Maybe he could help. Maybe it would be a good distraction for the man to distract him of his soulmates untimely death or the fact he had moved on and forgotten all about Clint.

James didn’t wake up for another 3 weeks. Clint had moved back into the tower and was slowly getting used to not being able to see anything in colour anymore, it was weird but eventually, you forget the colours themselves and it all just became black and white. Steve had tried to talk to him about it but he insisted he was absolutely fine, that it didn’t bother him even if it sometimes did. When James woke up for the first time, Clint was at the archery range with Natasha and Sam. They were sat on the sides watching Clint fire arrow after arrow when suddenly the world exploded again and the colour was drained into his eyesight. He gasped and nearly shot himself in the foot with his next arrow, stumbling back and blinked as he adjusted to the colours and sights again. “What?” he breathed out in confusion but couldn’t even explain his reaction to Natasha before Sam was getting called. “Bucky’s awake” Sam informed them and Clint just nodded numbly as he looked around himself in confusion. This wasn’t possible, was it?

Natasha had noticed her platonic soulmate's eyes change colour before herself and she pieced it together rather quickly. James had just woken up from being mind-controlled, Clint’s soulmate was alive again. It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out but she did wonder how long it would take the two of them to realise.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take them long at all, in fact, it was barely 24 hours before the two met. Natasha and Sam hadn’t realised that when Clint had snapped out of his dazed little expression he had followed the two into the medical bay. Steve was sat on the bed, talking quietly and softly to the man in front of him. Lying on the bed hooked up to all different machines while he was still missing an arm which Stark was now working on making brand new and not Hydra-like arm for the man. 

Clint at first stayed by the door. Out of the way and out of sight from James while Steve was trying to tell him about what had happened, where he was and why he only had one arm, trying to catch him up on the timeline and what not. Apparently, meeting your soulmate was like meeting someone that takes your breath away, love at first sight and all that crap. You’re meant to just look at them and _know._ Know that they are your soulmate. Also the fact your soul marks are meant to burn. Perhaps that would be easier to figure out who your actual soulmate was. 

When most of the room had cleared out it was just him, Bucky, Steve and Natasha left. A lot of them had left because of food being made but Clint cared more about not leaving Natasha than food. He moved closer into the room when Bucky made eye contact and they both froze. The world stopped moving around them and it felt like Steve nor did Natasha exist anymore. It was just the two of them. Clint felt his heart stop working, his breathing stop and his throat choked up. 

Suddenly it all made sense, the fact that Clint’s soulmate had “died” because Bucky hadn’t been home, it was the Winter Soldier when he was mind controlled so, therefore, his soulmate had technically died. It also made sense that Clint had him back now that Bucky was free of their control. Clint was relieved that he hadn’t lost the love of his life. That he had a chance to prove that he could be a good person, a good soulmate, a good lover. Even if soulmates were dumb. 

“Hi… I’m uh, Clint.” He stumbled a bit, his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, his throat felt dry and closed up. That was a lame way to introduce yourself, Barton. Good job on the first impressions. 

The thing was Bucky found it endearing, he smiled for the first time since he had been brought into Avengers tower and laughed quietly. “James uh- Bucky, I mean” Bucky rubbed at the back of his neck with his one remaining arm. “I’m your soulmate I guess” he shrugged nonchalantly as if he was just as clueless as Clint when it came to this whole soulmate business and well he probably was. They could figure it out together after all. 

So maybe soulmates weren’t that dumb. 


End file.
